Knob twirlers, put your fidgety hands together. Someone’s finally come up with a way for you to tweak the parameters of your stompboxes while you’re playing.
It’s called the 3rd Hand, made by a company called Tone in Progress. It’s a completely mechanical expression pedal that you attach to a knob post on one of your guitar effects pedals via a cable. Rocking your foot on the pedal twirls the knob.
Imagine what you could do with a tremolo pedal–check out this excerpt from the song “Bones” by Radiohead. Hear the tremolo effect on the guitar slow down? That’s Mr. Expensive Effects Dude in the studio’s control room, twirling the tremolo knob while Jonny Greenwood’s busy strumming his guitar. Can’t afford Mr. Expensive Effects Dude? For $110 (a little steep, in my opinion), you can slow that tremolo all by yourself.
Reviews on Harmony Central–all two of them–are mixed. Both reviewers are worried that the rubber band that drives the 3rd Hand’s pulley is wimpy. I’ll let you know how mine turns out.
Comments 3
How has it worked out for you? I’ve had mine for 4 days… the concept is wicked, but I do find it awkward, and I notice a little bit of slippage.
Oh yeah? I didn’t end up getting one. Quit my band, so I didn’t need it as much. I’m still hoping to get one from Santa, perhaps. In what way is it awkward? The setup or actually using the pedal?
Thanks for writing.
You all need to try one of these with a delay pedal. Set the 3rd Hand on the “time” knob and get totally spaced out!